


I want to know if I'll see you again

by Brosequartz



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Blackwatch Era, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining, Post-Fall of Overwatch, Shambali (Overwatch), Shambali Monastery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-04-29 23:45:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14483841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brosequartz/pseuds/Brosequartz
Summary: Genji hasn't heard from McCree since the fall of Overwatch, and not knowing if he'll ever see him again is tearing him apart. He has to leave the Shambali monastery to find the answer to that question.





	1. Stuck in my head is a picture of you

It’s been years. He should be able to move on. Genji took a deep breath and stood up. He turned from his seat in the corner of the cafe towards the bar, where a group of attractive young people were mingling and chatting. He walked towards them, and hesitated. After the briefest of moments, he changed course, moving past them instead. He sighed as he stepped out into the bustling city street, squinting into the sun. 

All this time, and he still couldn’t let Jesse go. It wasn’t like he was desperately clinging to his memory. He had tried being with other people. But every time, he couldn’t keep Jesse out of his head. If he approached one of those people in the cafe, it would just be the same thing again. It had been happening all weekend.

He sighed. This excursion to the city hadn’t refreshed him as he had hoped. There was nothing to do but head back up through the mountains to the Shambali monastery. Genji had found the monastery three years before, and learned much about himself there under the guidance of his teacher, Zenyatta. 

The two of them spoke often. Some of their conversations were painful, cutting deep to dredge out the worst of his feelings and fears. Bringing them to the surface to unwind them like so many tangled strings. But some knots were too tight to tease apart, too painful to think about. These he pushed back down, refusing to talk about them. Later, he told himself. In the future when the pain wasn’t quite so sharp. Zenyatta was kind and did not push him, but Genji still felt ashamed whenever one of their conversations struck a chord he couldn’t bear to follow. One such conversation had led to the trip he was on now.

“Genji,” Zenyatta had said, “do you think there might be something you are not considering?”

Genji was holding his head in his hands, leaning his elbows on his knees as they had sat cross-legged in a courtyard of the monastery. He had looked up at Zenyatta through his fingers. “What do you mean, master?”

“You have been struggling to ‘move on,’ have you not?”

Genji sighed. “Yes. Jesse McCree is the last piece of my past I have not yet made peace with.”

“Which is it that you want?” Zenyatta had prompted.

“What?” Genji picked his head up to give his master a puzzled look.

“Do you want to move on, or do you want to make peace?”

“I… I did not mean those as two different things.”

Zenyatta had nodded. “And yet... they are. I think that, perhaps, you have misunderstood your own wishes.”

Genji looked down at his feet, eyebrows knitting together. Could Zenyatta be right? He so often was. “You are saying that you think… I do not really want to move on?”

“It is a possibility,” the omnic had replied. “You must consider on your own whether you do. And if you discover that you do not, search yourself for the answer to the question of what you do want.” Then he had left Genji to his thoughts. 

As part of that consideration, Genji had planned a trip into the city. He wanted apply his fresh perspective to the prospect of a new lover. But each time someone had caught his eye, it was the same. Every other person’s hands and lips existed only in comparison to Jesse’s. It was like a picture of the cowboy was plastered behind his eyelids, giving him that smile that made his heart flutter and his cheeks grow warm. Just the memory took his breath away. He sighed again. He still didn’t know what he wanted. There were a few things he knew he didn’t want. But this trip was, overall, a failure.

Genji trudged back up the mountain, disappointed. He hoped a talk with Zenyatta could help him pick an answer out of the tangled mess of his thoughts. 

-

“It cannot be an accident that I think of him every time I consider another. I must be holding myself back from moving on. Actively.” Genji said. “I think, then, that it is not what I truly want. At some level, at the very least.” He and Zenyatta were sitting at the edge of the monastery, in a courtyard with a view of the mountains. 

“Do you know what it is that you do want?” Zenyatta asked, his voice tender.

“I want to know if I will see him again,” said Genji. The words left his mouth before they had fully formed in his brain. He hadn’t thought of it in his meditation, only now. He let out a deep breath. Zenyatta’s presence was such a blessing. His understanding of himself would be not nearly as great if he had not met the omnic monk. His questions and promptings had brought Genji to countless realizations, this one just as much a revelation as all the ones before.

“Is that all?” Zenyatta prompted him gently. 

“I just want to know. I do not want to forget about him. I do not… necessarily… want to be with him again. But I am tired of wondering. Right now, I do not know if he is even alive.”

“So what you want is not to see him, but to know if you will see him?” Zenyatta sounded perplexed.

“It sounds… odd, when you say it like that. But it seems I cannot bring myself to hope to see him until I know it is possible.” Genji smiled weakly. 

“Love is mysterious,” murmured Zenyatta. “What will you do?”

Genji paused for a moment, thoughtful. No amount of talking would give him the information he needed to answer his question. Was Jesse alive? Where was he? Would he want to see Genji again? He took a deep breath, and replied, “There are things I need to know. Questions I cannot learn the answers to just from thinking about them.”

Zenyatta’s voice was soft. “Many questions can be answered by looking within oneself. But not all questions.”

Genji nodded. 

They sat in silence for a while, a gentle wind blowing snowflakes down on them from the top of the mountain, though the sky was clear. 

“If I do see him… it will not be like it was before.”

Zenyatta tilted his head to the side, but said nothing.

“What it will be like… I cannot bear to think about yet.” He sighed, turning his face up into the breeze. “I do not want to have to mourn it if it never happens.” He blinked snowflakes out of his eyes, and tears he hadn’t realized were collecting there fell out too. 

“So, you must know whether you will see him again,” Zenyatta said, “before you can wonder what seeing him again would be like?” 

Genji nodded. “I think that my heart might break if I do otherwise.”


	2. You were the thunder, I was the rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are different now than they were in Blackwatch. Maybe they're worse.

There had never been a dull moment in Blackwatch. The rush, the intensity of it was almost overwhelming. Genji and Jesse had been a perfect storm on the battlefield, their skills combining in unexpected ways, impossible to anticipate and deadly to engage on. The deadeye sharpshooter and the silent assassin, splitting the attention of their enemies like thunder and rain. 

Jesse was like thunder off of the battlefield too- he could be loud, harsh, and sometimes frightening, at least to some. But Genji had never been afraid of thunder. The sound was comforting, soothing. Genji had fallen asleep to the rumble of thunder many times in his childhood, and Jesse’s whispered words beside him in bed were no different. When they lay together, his troubles and traumas felt far away. They had both suffered from nightmares back then, but sleeping side by side had helped. 

Even before they had become a couple, the comfort of something more tangible than a dream had given them relief. Genji remembered the first time they had kissed. He had awoken to hear Jesse shifting restlessly in his bed across the room, and had gotten up to slip in beside him. He rubbed Jesse’s back gently until the cowboy stilled and his breathing evened. Then Genji had curled up behind him and fallen asleep himself.

When he woke up, it was still nighttime. Jesse was facing him, his pupils wide in the darkness, but Genji’s cybernetically enhanced vision allowed him to read the tender expression on his face. 

“Jesse?” he had whispered.

“Yeah?” the cowboy replied, his voice soft.

Genji lifted his hand and brushed his fingertips ever so gently over Jesse’s lips. He heard the hitch in his breath, and shifted his hand to Jesse’s jaw. He leaned toward him slowly, giving him every chance to pull away but praying that he wouldn’t. He stopped with their mouths a hair’s breadth apart. He could feel Jesse’s breath on his lips, mingling with his own. He brushed his thumb over the cowboy’s jaw.

A heartbeat passed, then Jesse closed the gap between their mouths. Kissing him took Genji’s breath away. His lips were dry, but gentle, and Genji kissed him like no one he’d ever kissed before. Gently, softly. Lovingly. Like they had all the time in the world, though that couldn’t be farther from the truth. As though melting into Jesse would make all the bad things in the world vanish. As though they wouldn’t reappear in the morning if they just held each other tight enough.

He parted his lips to let Jesse’s tongue into his mouth. He gave a soft sigh and shifted his hand to the back of Jesse’s neck, holding him close. Jesse wrapped an arm around his waist, and his heart skipped a beat. He tilted his head to deepen the kiss even more, and Jesse let out the quietest whimper. Genji smiled against his lips and moved his hand up to run it through the cowboy’s hair. 

“Genji?” Jesse murmured, his eyes still closed in the darkness.

“Yes?” Genji replied.

“Thank you.”

Genji was unsure what the thanks was for, but said nothing. Instead he kissed Jesse again. Jesse kissed him back, taking his lower lip between his teeth to suck on it gently. They kissed each other for a long while, softly, until they both drifted back to sleep. Neither of them had any more nightmares that night.

 

Genji didn’t have nightmares anymore. He wondered if Jesse still did. Maybe he had nightmares about Blackwatch now, instead of Deadlock. Maybe he had both. 

Maybe he dreamed about Commander Reyes, and how he had grown less and less like his cheery self. How he had stopped joking around on missions, how he had become more secretive and irritable. Genji had noticed that what was overtaking him was not rage, but despair. Maybe Jesse had noticed that too.

Maybe Jesse dreamed about Dr. O’Deorain, and how her demeanor had grown even more sinister over the years than it had been when they met her. As Overwatch had crumbled, the expression she wore was usually a smug one, unsettling Genji and worrying McCree, as she and the Commander spent more and more time behind closed doors together in her lab.

Maybe Jesse dreamed about Captain Amari’s death. Genji himself had had nightmares about that. It was the last time he and the rest of Overwatch and grieved with sorrow rather than just anger alone. Jesse had cried for days. Genji had done his best to comfort him, but in retrospect, he had needed time, not sympathy. 

Maybe Jesse dreamed about Genji. Maybe he dreamed about fighting side by side together. Maybe he dreamed about kissing him. Maybe he dreamed about the day he had left Overwatch, and the look on Genji’s face as he walked away. Maybe that look haunted him. Was it selfish to think that? He knew his broken heart must have been as plain as day, his chest split open for it to be torn out and shatter on the floor. It was so long ago the memory didn’t really sting Genji anymore, but it did make him feel a dull ache in his heart. 

Jesse leaving had made everything fall apart for Genji. He had to be restricted to solo missions as he couldn’t work with anyone else. They couldn’t do what he needed. He lost sleep without Jesse to calm him. Commander Reyes got even worse, furious at Jesse’s abandonment. Genji couldn’t take it anymore. Rain without thunder was just bleak and sad. A few months later, he had left too. Jesse had said not to follow him, so he didn’t. He had set off on his own journey, traveling the world to find… something. He found the Shambali.

There were never any thunderstorms at the monastery. Never any rain either. There was only snow, though it could fall softly or heavily. It covered everything, muffling the sounds of everyday life, but seeming to amplify the sound of his thoughts. It never snowed in Gibraltar, where everything was loud, from the rocket launchpad to the waves crashing on the cliffs. It was completely different here. Everything was completely different. 

“Would you go back to the way things were?” Zenyatta had asked one afternoon after the had finished meditating together.

“No,” Genji replied without hesitation. “I have never been more whole than I am now. I may mourn some parts of that life. But not my past self. That me is gone now, and I am at peace with both him, and who I am now.”

“Well said,” Zenyatta said. “And the future will be more different still.”

Genji nodded in reply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love me a good flashback. This fic will have a lot of them


	3. I want to know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Genji looks for answers, and appeals to an old friend for help.

There was only so much information Genji could gather without leaving the monastery. From news reports they received regularly via mail, through the tiny post office in the village down the mountain from the monastery, the most he could find out was that Jesse McCree had a sixty million dollar bounty on his head and was on the run somewhere in America. That answered one question -- he was alive. But where he was was still a mystery, and an even deeper mystery, was whether or not he would want to see Genji again. The ninja would have to find another source of information.

There was limited web access at the monastery (it was populated by omnics, after all), but McCree seemed to be completely off the grid. There was nothing on the internet to suggest where he might be now. He was evidently just as good at covering his tracks now as he always had been. If he didn’t want to be found, the only way to contact him was to be contacted by him. Could Jesse have tried to get back in touch with anyone they had known during their time in Blackwatch?

He penned a letter to Dr. Ziegler. Genji had reconnected with Angela a few months earlier, and they had been communicating via written letter ever since. That first letter had been a heartfelt thanks for everything she had done for him, and an explanation of the peace he had found in Nepal.

Dear Dr. Ziegler,  
This time I write to you with a question. I want to know if there is some way I could see Jesse McCree again. If there is anyone you know he has contacted, or that you think he might have, I ask you to help me pass on a message to them. I want to talk to him. I want to know where he is.  
As you know, I have learned many things about myself since arriving here. One thing I have discovered is that not knowing where he is, or whether he ever thinks of me, occupies my thoughts somewhere in the back of my mind, no matter what I do. I need the answers to these questions. I would greatly appreciate your help, if you can give it. I do not think I could describe what it would mean to me, but I am sure that you can imagine.  
With gratitude,  
Genji

He twirled his feather pen between his cybernetic fingers. Dr. Ziegler knew how much he cared for McCree. She had been more than just a doctor to Genji, she had been a close confidant and friend. They had spent so much time together, with checkups and upgrades, spent so many hours talking, it would have been hard to not eventually grow close.

Their friendship had really started one checkup when she had asked him how he was doing. It was a question she asked every time, phrased just the same way, and he had known she meant his cybernetics. But he had had such a terrible day that he let all his emotions spill out of him, all the frustration and anger at the lack of understanding from his fellow Blackwatch agents, how they had no idea how much pain he was in. She had been startled at first, by the emotion in his voice and the angry tears streaming down his face. But she had quickly composed herself to comfort him. Once they had started talking, they hadn’t stopped for hours. From then on, they had been friends, talking about more than just his medical business, learning each other’s hobbies, hopes, fears, and dreams.

Angela had watched his relationship with Jesse unfold, as she became his friend before McCree did. She was self-proclaimed as “not a people person,” but she could tell that something was on his mind as the tension between them had come to a head. 

“Is something bothering you, Genji? You seem… distracted.”

“It’s… McCree,” he had replied.

She had narrowed her eyes. “Did he say something to you? Because I-”

“I like him,” Genji had interjected. Angela looked taken aback. Genji wasn’t usually one to interrupt. He spoke very little to begin with. She said nothing, and had just stared at him for a moment. He felt a blush rising in his cheeks, and forced a cough. “We are friends, but I would like to be more.”

“That… surprises me,” she had said after a beat.

Genji had smiled nervously. “It surprises me, too.”

Angela was then privy to all his thoughts about Jesse, from the “does he like me back” stage to their first kiss to falling in love. She would know how important this was to him, this favor he was asking.

Genji pulled himself out of his memories and back to the present. He addressed an envelope to Dr. Ziegler, and sealed the letter inside it. He was fairly certain she would be keeping in touch with Fareeha, and Jesse might have wanted to talk to her at some point. Angela was also friends with Torbjorn and Reinhardt, though Jesse contacting them was less likely. Genji’s heart clenched in pain as he realized the person Jesse would have been the most likely to want to speak to, even now, was dead. Captain Amari had been a friend and a mentor to them both, and unlike Commander Reyes, she had not grown apart from them before her death. Genji sometimes wished he could speak to her, too. 

Captain Amari had always had a fond spirit. She had taught both Jesse and Genji many things, both to do with fighting, and to do with themselves. Once, before they had gotten together, she had questioned Genji about it after a training session she had attended.

“So, Genji,” she had asked, walking over to him with a smug smile on her face, “how are you doing, dear?”

Puzzled, he had replied, “I am doing fine, captain. And yourself?”

Ignoring his question, she had continued, “I’ve noticed you looking at agent McCree with a little... sparkle in your eye.” Genji immediately felt his face flush, and she had laughed fondly, that loud, barking laugh that Genji would never forget. “He’s a charming young man, isn’t he?” 

When Genji said nothing, she had given him a small smile. “You shouldn’t worry, dear.” She said, with a knowing look in her eye. “And I think you two would make a cute couple.”

It hadn’t been long after that that they had gotten together. Captain Amari had always seemed to know what Genji was feeling. Jesse had told him that it was the same for him. She just had a way of understanding people. Seeing them as what they really were, what they really needed. 

Genji sighed as he carried his letter down the mountain from the monastery to the village where he could mail it. Captain Amari had been in his thoughts more than usual recently. He remembered her fondly, but at the same time… her death had been horribly painful, not just because it was so awful to lose her, but because without her the last threads holding Overwatch together had snapped, and everything began to crumble. It was when she had died that her friends had fallen to pieces, their relationships with each other strained or severed. 

It was hard to remember her without remembering that time. It had been impossible for Genji to focus on anything, his mind blank with shock. A grief-stricken Jesse’s faith in Overwatch had fallen to pieces, and he had left. It wasn’t Captain Amari’s death that had caused that, but the events happened so close together in time that it was hard to draw the memories apart from each other.

It was incredible how many painful memories had been created in just a few short months. Some things Genji had made peace with. He had put to rest his grief for Captain Amari, after mourning her for years. He had accepted that Overwatch’s time, and by extension Blackwatch’s time, had come to an end. The organization was muzzled, useless, unable to do its job, and shutting it down was what had to happen (Dr. Ziegler had helped him with that realization), even though the relationships forged there weren’t useless. Some of them were good. Some of them were important, and still are. Genji knew all this, and was at peace with it. But the way he and Jesse had left things between the two of them… or maybe just the way Jesse left things… still brought him pain, years later.

Genji dropped the letter off with the mail, set to go down the mountain at the end of the week. Then he made his way back up to the monastery to eagerly, but patiently, await Angela’s reply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That new in-game setup interaction between Genji and Ana got me way harder than it had any right to. That's why this chapter is both longer and later than planned lol
> 
> Edit: literally wtf, "Genji Shimada & Ana Amari" was not a tag,,,


	4. I said I love you, you said goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Genji remembers the night Jesse left Blackwatch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took forever to post because I rewrote it like 10 times. Originally this chapter and the next one were together going to be a one-shot (so I wanted it to be perfect), then I decided they deserved a broader context and a happier ending :) anyway I hope it was worth the wait!

Genji lay on his stomach in his bed, gazing out his window at the stars over the dark mountains. He rested his chin on his folded arms. Angela knew how much pain McCree had caused Genji when he left Blackwatch. What if she didn’t want to help him get back in contact with him? His brow furrowed. Surely she trusted Genji to know what was good for himself. She knew how much better he knew himself now. Still, he worried. Angela had a habit of telling people things they didn’t want to hear, from a simple “stop smoking” to vehement disapproval of her colleagues’ research.

What would he do if she told him looking for McCree would only hurt him more? Should he try to convince her, or just pursue other leads? Angela was a stubborn woman, and she cared about him. The night Jesse had left was one Genji would remember forever, and he doubted Angela would forget the amount of pain he had been in afterwards.

He rolled over onto his back, the memory replaying in his head.

Genji had been sitting on his bed, reading from his datapad. It was late- the lights were all off in the hallways, and the building was quiet. Contrary to popular belief, Blackwatch agents typically didn’t stay up late when they weren’t on missions. Genji couldn’t quite remember why he and Jesse had still been awake. They had just returned from a mission, so it might have been jet lag.

Jesse had been on his own bed across the room from Genji’s, lying on his stomach to use his datapad while it was plugged in to charge. He was still wearing his work clothes from earlier that day, while Genji had put on pajama pants and a hoodie hours before. He didn’t always wear pajamas, but he had felt chilly, having taken off a few pieces of his body armor after wearing it for days on end on the mission.

Genji stretched and stood up with a yawn. “I am going to the toilet,” he said, walking towards the door to the hall. “I will be turning out the lights when I get back. You should get changed.”

Jesse grunted in acknowledgement, not looking up from his datapad. Genji closed the door gently behind him and padded down the hall. He didn’t want to make Jesse change in the dark, but he was finally getting sleepy and wanted to get to bed. 

When Genji got back from the bathroom, Jesse hadn’t changed into his pajamas. He had put on his hat and his boots, and stood beside his bed, posture stiff. Genji’s eyes fell to the bed, where the bag Jesse brought his things in on missions was sitting. Genji gave him a questioning look.

For a moment, neither of them said anything, Jesse clenching and unclenching his hands at his sides. Genji blinked slowly and tilted his head to one side, waiting.

“Genji,” said Jesse, “I’m leaving.” 

“Leaving…?” Genji prompted, unsure what he meant.

“Blackwatch,” said Jesse. “I’m leaving Blackwatch.”

Genji’s heart dropped into his stomach. “What?”

“I can’t stay here like this.” he replied, “Ever since what happened in Venice, I can’t help but thinking... what if Overwatch ain’t the good guys?”

Genji frowned. “The Venice incident…”

Before he could go on, Jesse interrupted, “I know Antonio was an evil son of a bitch, but we were supposed to bring him to justice. Instead we executed him.”

Genji stood up straighter, his face becoming clouded with worry. “We have spoken about this before. Months ago. Why would you decide to leave now?”

Jesse rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. “Hell, it’s been nearly a year since the incident, hasn’t it. Well, it’s just been eating me, Genji, eating me alive. What we did wasn’t justice. And it got me thinking.”

Genji felt his heart beat faster, trying to push down the fear gathering in his stomach. “Thinking?”

“When I joined Blackwatch, I thought I was getting a trade up from Deadlock. Thought I could start to do some good in the world.” Jesse drew a shaky breath, and continued, “It’s not just the Venice incident. It was one thing after another, and that was just the one that made me see. Overwatch doesn’t uphold justice. Even if it ever did, it doesn’t now.” There was a finality in his voice that made Genji’s heart clench.

Jesse took another deep breath, and averted his eyes from Genji’s. “And Genji,” he said, “I’m asking you not to follow me.” He met his eyes again. “Please. I gotta go all by my lonesome. I can’t-” he paused, rubbing the back of his neck. “I can’t help but wondering, what if all I’ve ever done all my life is fire my gun for the bad guys? First for Deadlock, and now for Overwatch? I know I’m not a good man, but… I didn’t think I was a bad one either.”

Genji felt tears burning at the corners of his eyes. “I love you,” he whispered. He had never said it before, but the truth of it crashed over him like a wave as the words left his mouth. He loved Jesse. He loved falling asleep in his arms. He loved the feeling of his lips on his own, on his hands, his neck, his chest… He loved the look in his eye on the battlefield, his fearsome accuracy with his Peacekeeper. He loved Jesse’s laugh, he loved his bad jokes, he loved the look on his face when he was concentrating, deep in thought. Genji was happy when he was with Jesse. The anger that seemed to cloud his view of the world seemed to dissipate around him. He could breathe a little easier when Jesse was there.

But now his breath was caught in his throat, as the tears welling up in his eyes threatened to fall.

He saw tears in Jesse’s eyes too as he said, “Goodbye, Genji.” 

Jesse shouldered his bag and walked out of the room. He didn’t look at Genji as he closed the door behind him with a soft click. His footsteps faded down the hall, and then the barracks were silent.

Genji sank to the floor, trembling, and broke into tears. He couldn’t remember how long he had stayed there, his body shaking with sobs, but it had been a long, long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me writing this chapter: cliche who's that I don't know her


	5. In the blink of an eye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Genji remembers the day after Jesse left Blackwatch, and realizes what he needs.

Commander Reyes found Genji in a heap on the floor in the morning, his head lying on the cold cement, eyes unfocused, staring at nothing.

He had opened the door without knocking, an irritated look on his face. “You two are late. What- Genji?” He stopped, looking at Genji’s collapsed form, confused. His eyes flicked to McCree’s empty bed. “Where’s Jesse?” he demanded. Genji closed his eyes and said nothing.

“Where is he?” the commander repeated harshly.

Genji squeezed his eyes shut tighter. 

Commander Reyes pinched the bridge of his nose. “Tell me where he is, Genji,” he asked again, his voice softer this time. 

“He left,” Genji said, keeping his eyes closed and his voice level.

“Left?” the commander asked. “You’ve gotta give me-”

“Left Blackwatch.” Genji cut him off.

The commander said nothing for a moment, and the room was silent. Genji tried to focus on the feeling of the cold floor against his face, instead of the hole in his chest he felt his heart had been torn out of.

Commander Reyes broke the silence. “What?” he said, “He left Blackwatch?” 

Genji didn’t reply, and didn’t open his eyes. He felt the commander’s eyes on him for a few moments, then heard him turn and leave the room, slamming the door behind him.

Once his footsteps had faded down the hall, Genji turned slowly onto his back and opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling. They were sore from crying and from lack of sleep, and he let them fall closed again after a moment.

-

Genji didn’t want to talk to anyone. He sat in Dr. Ziegler’s office for a routine checkup later that day, and stared at his feet dangling over the edge of the bench as she looked him over, refusing to catch her eye. 

He could hear the worry in her voice as she tried several times to find words to comfort him. She wasn’t the comforting sort, but looking back at that day now, Genji could appreciate how much she had wanted to. 

Back then though, he had ignored her, motionless and silent as she hovered around him, checking and re-checking his vents and such several more times than usual. 

“Well,” she had said nervously after she could find no reason to keep him any longer, “you look… ah, your cybernetics look fine. You’ve been requested to report to Captain Amari when we were finished.”

Genji’s brow furrowed. Captain Amari? What could she possibly want with him? Was she going to try to comfort him too? He didn’t want to hear it. Instead of going to her office, he left the building and found a place to sit outside, overlooking the water. He took off his helmet and ran his left hand through his hair. 

He let the sea breeze blow across his face, and began to cry again. He felt empty. It was an eerie feeling, emptiness. He hadn’t felt empty in years, not since before his cybernization. Ever since then he had always just felt angry. Angry at his brother, angry at the entire Shimada clan, angry at the physical pain that made his own body a living hell. Angry at the fact that the agony never stopped, never went away, but here he was now, numb. The pain where his cybernetics attached to what was left of his body felt duller somehow. The rage that often consumed him felt far away. 

And then it hit him. Sorrow. All the sadness of the night before, without the shock that had paralyzed him then. It crashed into him and knocked the breath out of him. The salty ocean air stung his eyes, and he squeezed them closed against the wind as the tears streamed down his cheeks. He drew his knees up to his chest and pressed his face into them, struggling to draw breath between sobs. He pushed away thoughts of what would happen next, of how things would change, and just let himself cry. Genji was no stranger to pain, but that didn’t make it any less awful. It was as though his heart had been torn out of him, just like his legs and right arm. It felt wrong, wrong, wrong. His heart hurt even more than his body, shredded to pieces.

It felt like hours later that the tears finally stopped. Genji rested his chin on his knees, sniffling, and looked out over the water. The waves had been sparkling in the afternoon sunlight when he had arrived, but now clouds covered the sun, and he could see rain falling on the sea in the distance. As sad as he was, he didn’t want to get rained on. He lurched to his feet, and put his helmet back on. Now what? He could go back to his room, but… most of Jesse’s things were still there. And he didn’t feel like it. Begrudgingly, he headed for Captain Amari’s office.

As he approached her door, he heard voices coming from inside. He leaned against the wall, deciding to wait. 

Commander Reyes’s voice pitched suddenly above the others. “That damn INGRATE! I fight for him, give him a chance to amount to something more, and he LEAVES?”

Captain Amari responded, but her voice was too low to make out her words. 

“Don’t you think I know that?” Reyes answered her, his voice cracking.

There was a third voice, but Genji couldn’t make out who it was or what they were saying. He hesitated, then turned to walk back down the hallway again. He wasn’t about to wait some indeterminate amount of time to talk to the captain when he didn’t really want to talk to her anyway. Or anyone else, for that matter.

Instead, Genji made his way back to his room. He closed the door behind him, and his eyes fell to Jesse’s bed. The sheets were drawn up but not tucked in, as usual. Mechanically, he walked to Jesse’s wardrobe and opened the door. Most of his clothes were still there. Genji took out a sweatshirt and put it on, pulling it gently over the cables at the back of his neck. He lifted up the front of the collar and inhaled deeply. It didn’t smell like Jesse. 

Further inspection revealed Jesse had only left behind clean clothes. As baffling as it was, it was true. Genji felt like crying but choked back his sobs, continuing his search for… something. His movements grew frantic as he went through Jesse’s shirts and sweaters, sniffing them all one by one. None of them smelled like him. Shaking, he rested his forehead against the door of the wardrobe for a moment. He took a deep breath, then padded over to Jesse’s bed, and picked up his pillow to press his face into it. It smelled like Jesse. Genji pulled it into a hug, and took a deep breath, crying with a bewildering mixture of relief and heartbreak.

He crawled into Jesse’s bed and burrowed under the covers. The sheets were cold, but he drew them tightly around himself. As they warmed up, Genji felt himself deflate, numbness overtaking him once again.

-

The next few months passed in a blur. It seemed like the blink of an eye between that day and the day the Swiss base had exploded. Captain Amari and Commander Reyes were dead, just like that. And the remaining members of Overwatch were scattering to all corners of the world, Genji included. 

As Genji lay in his bed at the Shambali monastery, looking out at the stars through his window, the day Jesse had left didn’t seem as far away as it sometimes did. He supposed it made sense, now that he was searching in earnest for news about Jesse. Of course those memories would bubble to the surface, stinging like acid even all these years later. 

Genji was a different man than he had been back then. At the monastery he had grown, become whole. But some memories still hurt. Angela might think that what he was doing was dredging them up for no reason, and the pain it was causing him was needless. But it wasn’t. He had to know. If there was any chance his and Jesse’s paths would cross again, he… damn it.

Genji had told Zenyatta that he couldn’t bear to hope he would see Jesse again until he knew it was possible. But he had already started hoping for it anyway. He buried his face in his pillow as the realization dawned on him. 

If Angela thought he was setting himself up for a world of pain, she wouldn’t be wrong. But he’d come this far. He’d dredged up enough painful memories to make him cry softly into his pillow now, the better part of a decade later. He was going to go through with it. He turned his face to the side to breathe, and wiped his eyes with his left hand. This was what he needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't want it to seem like I think Gabe is a bad or abusive person, but rather that at this point in time everything he cared about was already in the process of collapsing, including his own body, and he was scared and angry about it. Jesse leaving was heartbreaking. I may put out a one-off piece of the conversation Genji overheard between him and Ana.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to TRY and keep a regular update schedule for this but also I'm finishing my postgraduate school program in 2 months so we'll see how that goes. I do have the entire thing outlined so here's hoping


End file.
